by Chris Marshall:
As a child, we had a copy of Mutiny on the Bounty that had been recorded off television. It was
the 1962 version starring Marlon Brando as Fletcher Christian, and for many
years I assumed it was the definitive version of the film. Perhaps for many
people it is. When I discovered there was an older, black and white version
(the horror!), I believed it was by necessity inferior.
I had no idea then that the 1935 film (which was itself not
the original film version) had won Best Picture, though I suppose it wouldn’t
have mattered to me much at the time. Nor did I know that Marlon Brando’s
behavior during filming 1962 was more incomprehensible than Captain Bligh’s, though
considerably less damaging to the crew. All of this knowledge came later, but I
cannot recall a time in my life when I didn’t know the story of the H.M.S.
Bounty.
Of course, that’s true of any number of movies. I remember
having to call in my parents or my brother to read the subtitles when Jabba the
Hutt was talking in Return of the Jedi.
I remember watching Raiders of the Lost
Ark on an endless loop. But the peculiar thing is that I have no
recollection of ever watching any version of Mutiny on the Bounty, and I definitely never watched it from start
to finish. I can’t even think of a specific scene
from the film.
But even before watching it for The Oscar Project, I knew
the story, just as I always have. I was missing some details, but the general
arc was there. Perhaps my brother explained it to me when we played Sid Meier’s Pirates! for the NES. Maybe
I read it in a book during those years. All I know is that, somehow, for
reasons I can’t explain, I associate Bligh and Christian with my youth.
These mysteries of childhood often haunt me. In an era where
the entirety of human knowledge is available at all times, it pains me to know
that there are questions which can never be answered.
 |
| Gable or Clooney? |
Anyway, about this movie. It was very enjoyable, but the
main takeaway for me was how much Clark Gable looked like George Clooney. I
mean, it was uncanny. They might be the same person for all know. I’m not
saying this means anything, but Gable
died November 16, 1960, and Clooney was born May 6, 1961. Gable was born in
Ohio, and Clooney was raised in Ohio. The similarities are endless!
If I have a complaint about the film, it’s that we have to
wait so long for the mutiny to happen. In Battleship
Potemkin they cut right to the chase. There’s a shot of some rotten,
maggoty meat, a title card tells us that the captain is evil czarist scum, and
that’s that; mutiny’s on! In Mutiny on
the Bounty, around 90 minutes passes before the crew acts on the mutinous
feelings Bligh has been inspiring.
From a “realistic” perspective, it makes a lot more sense
that way, since they are effectively condemning themselves to death and exile
if they rise up against their captain. But who has time for that? I want
rebellion now! But as it is, we have
to wait until they reach Tahiti before the really exciting stuff happens.
Prior to seeing this film, I only knew Charles Laughton from
his single directorial effort, the 1955 masterwork Night of the Hunter. I was shamefully ignorant of his acting
career, which included a Best Actor winning performance in The Private Life of Henry VIII in 1933. Laughton was still relatively
young at this point, but he turned in another great performance as Captain
Bligh. He pulled off a most difficult task, making Bligh both unimaginably
cruel but also respectable as a great sailor. And after the mutiny, you almost
feel sorry for him, because he was running the ship the only way he knew how.
Not that this excuses his actions; among other things, he keelhauled and
flogged two different crew members to death and sent another to the crow’s nest
in a violent storm.
It is with a heavy heart that I must report that this
villainy pales in comparison to the crimes that the next Best Picture winner perpetrated
on mankind. Prepare yourselves, for tomorrow brings us to The Great Ziegfeld.
No comments:
Post a Comment